Winning Poems for July 2014

First Place

I ride the Walt Whitman into Camden,
guided by refineries’ methane flares,
brake lights bombarding my eyes, car horns unholy.
Jesus Christ would use his turn signal
every fucking time, even when no one’s watching.
It’s hard for me to imagine an event
without witness.

I would be without you either way, watching or not,
alone to possess this aging suit of skin and hair
and all the rest-black t-shirt pulled tight, diamond glinting.
I don’t know if I should venture out for weed
tonight, as thoughts of your pin-cushion belly
thicken my blood to a trickle, and the monotonous
calculation of half-life takes hold.

Seated in the lawn of the Susquehanna Bank Center,
I flirt with the drunken mother of quadruplets
granted an evening reprieve from her horde of suckling lips,
music provided by a skinny boy called Jason Mraz.
I don’t know how your girls are doing, George–
they have grown up and forgotten all but the myth of you,
but I remember kissing your papery lips goodbye.

I enjoy and admire the natural, conversational voice that manages to retain the stuff of poetry -- richness of detail, elements of surprise -- without flattening into prose. In the poem's final moment we discover that "George," who disappeared off the face of the earth long ago, seems to have been forgotten by nearly everyone, except for the poet who speaks to him now. This colors our understanding of what's come before. --Suzanne Lummis

Prasad, offered by the priests as an ancient “holy” leaf
to chew. That agent the old still use to celibate
I snatch from the reach of all nubile girls.

The figure in this poem speaks in a composed, lucid voice, a language distilled to a purity, but she makes a questionable claim. She blames the herb used in religious ceremonies, Tulsi, for her inability to bear a child. In order to determine whether we have here an "unreliable narrator" I researched the "Holy Basil," and while I found many reports extolling its benefits -- antioxidant, anti-aging, and anti-stress properties -- one did suggest it had led to decreased fertility in lab animals. Perhaps the speaker came upon the same reference. In any case, what matters is that she believes the herb led to her infertility, and in this there is such odd pathos, as if the sacred has betrayed her. It's an unusual, interesting little poem, one in which the poet doesn't tell us what to believe, what to conclude. --Suzanne Lummis

Third Place

Because a red rose has shadows in her creases,
and she sings love songs at midnight
in a saloon by the same name.
Because of this, I’ll remember you
and the red rose city you put me in.

Because bachelor insects climb through shadows,
in the wailing, red rose city of insects,
hypnotized by desire, by her smell,
and because you touched me when I was too young
to know the difference,

I came swimming up from loneliness
into a world of flashing red roses
and thorns.

Because no red petals ever clung to you,
and you had no poetry at all,
I took it all.
I became the one who knew
what you could never know, if it weren’t for me.

This one rolls out a ripe, heated, nearly over-the-top imagery that could hardly be more different from the first two -- but how wonderful that contemporary poetry offers up this variety. "The bachelor insects climb through shadows/in the wailing red rose city of insects" seems reminiscent of Lorca's early surrealism, and it's gorgeous. I love how the closing sentence doubles back on itself, and its meaning seems to fold and unfold. --Suzanne Lummis